Shimano XT 32t chainring: carbon vs. steel

Hello, my middle chainring broke, so I ordered a replacement. However, it appears that the new chainring includes two carbon(?) spacers on both sides (attached down here), whereas the old chainring did not. Obviously this prevents a fit.

Did I really order the wrong chainring? Or is there a way to remove the carbon spacers? Without them, it would appear that the chainring might fit! I would be exceedingly grateful for any advice!

If your cranks look like this, this ring won´t fit. I managed to do it with mine,though, but involves removing some aluminium from the spider and and add spacers.Unless relatively skilled and don´t mind to loose guarantee, I would not recomend it.
What you call carbon spacers is the actual chainring. The ring material is steel/carbon bonded together. That is not removable or anything, is part of the ring itself.
Its a nice ring. Steel lasts much longer than the aluminium one, although shifting feels a bit slower I thought it was worth to modify the crank to make it fit.

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"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordly evidence of the fact." George Elliot

What&son is bang on, those new XT chainrings won't fit the previous versions.

The advantage of the older XT models, is that they are a standard BCD and fitting, so you have a raft of options to replace the chainrings such as FSA, BlackSpire, TA Specialties, Truvativ etc and you can really spend as little or as much as you want.

If you must replace your chainrings with genuine Shimano rings, you will have limited choice as to what's available (In australia, the best shimano chainrings we have available to fit those cranks would be a Deore level).

It seems with a lot of the new cranksets coming out (9spd, 10 spd, double, triples) there is a trend to make chainrings that are specific to that crankset.
In Shimano's case, they have a standard BCD of 104 and 64, but the way the chainrings mount onto the crank tabs prevent the use of other brands aftermarket chainrings unless you get out the file and start modding them.

personally I find that quite annoying, its obvious why they do it, but annoying none the less!

many thanks indeed for your kind and helpful replies. I will buy a new chainring then!

I still have a question and a request for you. Would you be so kind and post a few links to the appropriate alternative chainrings (FSA, BlackSpire, TA Specialties, Truvativ etc) within webshops? I wish to make sure that I do not end up buying the wrong chainring for the second time...

...or might any of you have a spare chainring that you could send me? If so, send me a PM. I can pay you easily with PayPal, I guess.

The chainring is for my 12-yr old Hot-Chili Rampage. I do not trash it because of its "emotional value", but I shouldn't spend more than absolutely necessary since pretty much every part of it is sequentially failing. I now use it only for commuting: serious mountain-biking I do with my new Cannondale Rize-1 Carbon (nothing failing there!).